• carpoftruth [any, any]@hexbear.netM
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    4 months ago

    The paucity of the examples of repression is very telling. Omg a handful of security checkpoints, I’ve never seen that kind of thing when I travel through airports or enter bars before, holy shit

  • GrouchyGrouse [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    4 months ago

    I went to China and everything was black and white. There is no color, there. The people eat their pet dogs and plain rice. They don’t even need to eat the dogs, they just do it to fuck with westerners. Six men in a dragon costume threw firecrackers at me.

    Hire me, NYT

  • RyanGosling [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    4 months ago

    Videos by influencers documenting their trips have been widely promoted on Chinese media — if they tell a certain story.

    Yeah I’m sure the NY government will promote vlogs where tourists complain about crime or dirty streets or getting scammed or robbed alongside tourists expressing joy over seeing theater and historical sites.

  • Antiwork [none/use name, he/him]@hexbear.net
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    4 months ago

    Xi I would very much love to visit China. I promise to take pictures and videos that show China in a positive light because it’s an amazing country. Please just help me with airfare costs.

  • 中国共产党万岁
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    4 months ago

    What other place could have:

    • Police on every corner
    • Ubiquitous surveillance
    • Systemic repression

    what’s that? it’s new york city? whoops.

  • LocalOaf [they/them, ze/hir]@hexbear.net
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    4 months ago

    Is it just me or is CHYNAAA BADDDD propaganda from The Paper of Record™️ and Fourth Estate™️ getting dumber and sloppier? It feels like they all wore themselves out on Taiwan saber rattling shit and have just been phoning it in lately

    • TechnoUnionTypeBeat [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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      4 months ago

      It doesn’t need to be smart or clean. The propaganda runs so deep and so complete that “China Bad” is almosy quite literally the every waking thought of anyone in the global north who isn’t a socialist. The propaganda doesn’t even need to say anything anymore, liberals will simply fabricate whatever scares them the most, and if people ever point out the flaws in the propaganda, they’ll just laugh and say that it could be real and that’s the scary part etc

      • bumpusoot [any]@hexbear.net
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        4 months ago

        For me at least, it’s one of the scariest parts of modern (western) culture, the complete denial and unwillingness to address reality. WWatching people believe quite literally any shit you can cook up about China or NK. But as soon as you say “uh actually they’re just normal human beings” you’re decried as an insane person.

      • PeeOnYou [he/him]
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        4 months ago

        the absolute shock of the people i work with when i say anything positive about “bad China” is all the anecdotal proof i need to know how true this is

        • zed_proclaimer [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          4 months ago

          Try it out in your life, point out any well-documented objectively good thing China has done recently. This could be curing Diabetes, building thousands and thousands of km of high speed rail, meeting their 2030 green energy goals ahead of schedule, eliminating extreme poverty, etc.

          In nearly 100% of cases, in America at least, they will retort with a “but at what costs” or “that’s made up”. The only exception is certain Chinese people, fellow MLs, or people with direct firsthand knowledge and experience of China.

      • I hate how true this is.

        the typical American imaginary is and has been marinating in sinophobia, coming from every media source since I’ve been alive. from newspapers, erudite periodicals, live anchors, and “sober” non fiction books to fictional TV shows on broadcast, cable, and premium channels. shows that have nothing to do with “politics” or have any international scope throw in subplots about how scary and dangerous and undemocratic life in China is.

        the single piece we see and snort at today is just another pinch of salt or drop of vinegar in a long running process that has more layers of interlocking parts than the gods have faces.

        this is the maintenance of the superstructure.

  • GnastyGnuts [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    4 months ago

    Here in the free land of America, we actively promote people taking a big, smelly shit on our country, our rights, and our citizens.

    I was setting that up as a “nobody promotes negative stories about their country” sort of argument-by-comparison, but we also just had our government practically offer their assholes to Count Bibula, right after he insulted our nation and people while asking for money and demanding we do his laundry, so I guess we really are free.

  • HorseRabbit@lemmy.sdf.org
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    4 months ago

    So there are police visible walking around sometimes,

    Security checkpoints at the entrances to densely packed areas,

    And one time a hotel had to phone the local police to ask if they could accept foreign guests.

    The horror.

  • khizuo [ze/zir]@hexbear.net
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    4 months ago

    I’ve watched a few of those videos, they just made me nostalgic. Hopefully someday I can go back for a visit, it’s been a while.

  • Rod_Blagojevic [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    4 months ago

    Doesn’t the New York Times, the most famous newspaper in the world, do constant negative reporting from China? I’m assuming they must have staff, or at least contractors there, considering how much they have to say about the place.

  • infuziSporg [e/em/eir]@hexbear.net
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    4 months ago

    “You forget that you are on a massive movie set, seeing a facade of freedom.”

    Yeah, it’s all just a big Potemkin village. A really big Potemkin village with over a million people in it. Any minute, they can collapse it all down and go back to the barracks. They probably have really fancy machinery that folds everything down on its own, too.